Amazon.com Essentials:
The first of a popular series (six in all) starring the charismatic and
athletically adept Jet Li. Li plays legendary folk hero Wong Fei Hong, a
late 19th century southern Chinese healer and kung fu master. The story
begins with Western powers (American, British, and French) encroaching on
the city of Canton. Wong is asked by the Black Flag army to safeguard the
town by creating his own militia of kung fu experts. His assistants
include the butcher "Porky" (Kent Cheng), a Chinese-American named
Bucktooth So (Jacky Cheung), and his westernized "Auntie" Yee (Rosamund
Kwan), a non-blood-related childhood friend for whom he holds a special
affection. But the Westerners aren't the only problem in Canton. The Sha
Ho gang terrorizes local businesses and has begun dealing with the
Americans in exporting Chinese for slave labor and prostitution. A
down-on-his-luck kung fu master named Iron Vest Yim (Yan Yee Kwan) has decided he
needs to defeat Wong to open a school and Leung Fu (Jackie Chan contemporary Yuen
Biao), a traveling opera troupe groupie, just keeps getting in the way.
This epic martial-arts film showcases Li's amazing fighting and acrobatic
skills and established Tsui Hark as a top-notch action film director. The
final fight scene between Wong and Yim entails a dizzying orchestration of
kicks and punches while teeter-tottering on ladders. The DVD features star
bios, filmographies, trailers, and clips from early Wong Fei Hong films that
starred veteran actor Kwan Tak Hing. --Shannon Gee
